What Is the Relationship Between Language and Thought?: Linguistic Relativity and its Implications for Copyright

To date, copyright scholarship has almost completely overlooked the linguistics and cognitive psychology literature exploring the connection between language and thought. An exploration of the two major strains of this literature, known as universal grammar (associated with Noam Chomsky) and linguistic relativity (centered around the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis), offers insights into the copyrightability of constructed languages and of the type of software packages at issue in Google v. Oracle recently decided by the Supreme Court. It turns to modularity theory as the key idea unifying the analysis of both languages and software in ways that suggest that the information filtering associated with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis may be a general strategy for managing complex systems that is not restricted to language. It also examines Jerry Fodor’s application of modularity theory to cognition and his Language of Thought Hypothesis to see what they reveal about the idea-expression dichotomy

Special Issue "On Defining Artificial Intelligence"—Commentaries and Author's Response

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Factors Affecting Construction of Science Discourse in the Context of an Extracurricular Science and Technology Project

Doing and learning science are social activities that require certain language, activities, and values. Both constitute what Gee (2005) calls Discourses. The language of learning science varies with the learning context (Lemke, 2001,1990). Science for All Americans (AAAS, 1990) and Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards (NRC, 2000) endorse inquiry science learning. In the United States, most science learning is teacher-centered; inquiry science learning is rare (NRC, 2000). This study focused on 12 high school students from two suburban high schools, their three faculty mentors, and two engineering mentors during an extracurricular robotics activity with FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC). FRC employed student-centered inquiry focus to teach science principles integrating technology. Research questions were (a) How do science teachers and their students enact Discourses as they teach and learn science? and (b) How does the pedagogical approach of a learning activity facilitate the Discourses that are enacted by students and teachers as they learn and teach science? Using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the study examined participants’ language during robotic activities to determine how language used in learning science shaped the learning and vice versa. Data sources included video-recordings of participant language and semi-structured interviews with study participants. Transcribed recordings were coded initially using Gee’s (2005) linguistic Building Tasks as a priori codes. CDA was applied to code transcripts, to construct Discourses enacted by the participants, and to determine how context facilitated their enactment. Findings indicated that, for the students, FRC facilitated elements of Science Discourse. Wild About Robotics (W.A.R.) team became, through FRC, part of a community similar to scientists’ community that promoted knowledge and sound practices, disseminated information, supported research and development and encouraged interaction of its members. The public school science classroom in the U.S. is inimical to inquiry learning because of practices and policies associated with the epistemological stance that spawned the standards and/or testing movement and No Child Left Behind (Baez & Boyles, 2009). The findings of this study provided concrete ideas to accommodate the recommendations by NRC (1996) and NSES (2000) for creating contexts that might lead to inquiry science learning for meaningful student engagement

High-Performance Modelling and Simulation for Big Data Applications

This open access book was prepared as a Final Publication of the COST Action IC1406 “High-Performance Modelling and Simulation for Big Data Applications (cHiPSet)“ project. Long considered important pillars of the scientific method, Modelling and Simulation have evolved from traditional discrete numerical methods to complex data-intensive continuous analytical optimisations. Resolution, scale, and accuracy have become essential to predict and analyse natural and complex systems in science and engineering. When their level of abstraction raises to have a better discernment of the domain at hand, their representation gets increasingly demanding for computational and data resources. On the other hand, High Performance Computing typically entails the effective use of parallel and distributed processing units coupled with efficient storage, communication and visualisation systems to underpin complex data-intensive applications in distinct scientific and technical domains. It is then arguably required to have a seamless interaction of High Performance Computing with Modelling and Simulation in order to store, compute, analyse, and visualise large data sets in science and engineering. Funded by the European Commission, cHiPSet has provided a dynamic trans-European forum for their members and distinguished guests to openly discuss novel perspectives and topics of interests for these two communities. This cHiPSet compendium presents a set of selected case studies related to healthcare, biological data, computational advertising, multimedia, finance, bioinformatics, and telecommunications

The Sixth Annual Workshop on Space Operations Applications and Research (SOAR 1992)

This document contains papers presented at the Space Operations, Applications, and Research Symposium (SOAR) hosted by the U.S. Air Force (USAF) on 4-6 Aug. 1992 and held at the JSC Gilruth Recreation Center. The symposium was cosponsored by the Air Force Material Command and by NASA/JSC. Key technical areas covered during the symposium were robotic and telepresence, automation and intelligent systems, human factors, life sciences, and space maintenance and servicing. The SOAR differed from most other conferences in that it was concerned with Government-sponsored research and development relevant to aerospace operations. The symposium's proceedings include papers covering various disciplines presented by experts from NASA, the USAF, universities, and industry

High-Performance Modelling and Simulation for Big Data Applications

This open access book was prepared as a Final Publication of the COST Action IC1406 “High-Performance Modelling and Simulation for Big Data Applications (cHiPSet)“ project. Long considered important pillars of the scientific method, Modelling and Simulation have evolved from traditional discrete numerical methods to complex data-intensive continuous analytical optimisations. Resolution, scale, and accuracy have become essential to predict and analyse natural and complex systems in science and engineering. When their level of abstraction raises to have a better discernment of the domain at hand, their representation gets increasingly demanding for computational and data resources. On the other hand, High Performance Computing typically entails the effective use of parallel and distributed processing units coupled with efficient storage, communication and visualisation systems to underpin complex data-intensive applications in distinct scientific and technical domains. It is then arguably required to have a seamless interaction of High Performance Computing with Modelling and Simulation in order to store, compute, analyse, and visualise large data sets in science and engineering. Funded by the European Commission, cHiPSet has provided a dynamic trans-European forum for their members and distinguished guests to openly discuss novel perspectives and topics of interests for these two communities. This cHiPSet compendium presents a set of selected case studies related to healthcare, biological data, computational advertising, multimedia, finance, bioinformatics, and telecommunications